Featured Articles

RE: The British Columbia Fallen Paramedics Memorial Monument Unveiling March 3, 2015 Dear Colleagues On behalf of the Fallen Paramedics Memorial Committee I wish to inform you the Honourable Christy Clark, Premier of the Province of B.C and the Honorable Linda Reid, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of B.C. have announced Wednesday, May 6, 2015 as the date set for the unveiling of the above noted memorial. The committee extends an invitation to you to join your colleagues of the … Read More

Alan Batt1,3, Jessica Morton2,3, Matthew Simpson3 1National Ambulance LLC, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates 2Student Paramedics Australasia, NSW, Australia 3Prehospital Research Support Site, prehospitalresearch.eu Introduction The traditional model of paramedicine refers to the role of paramedics with a focus on treatment and transport to emergency departments of acutely ill and injured patients. However, changes in demand from patients for clinical resources has seen the need for evolution and diversification of service delivery to include patient assessment with non-transport options to … Read More

New and noteworthy Apps for Paramedics Angela Anderson Ten years ago would you believe us if we said you would be able to follow the latest CPR guidelines on your smart phone? What if we said you could schedule a fleet using your pocket device? Access basic life support guidelines by the touch of a button, anywhere? With technology allowing us to do pretty much anything on our devices, there really is no excuse for not having the information we … Read More

Jason E. Buick & Ian R. Drennan Each year approximately 50,000 people in Canada suffer a stroke.That’s nearly one stroke every 10 minutes, leading to over 14,000 deaths and many others with permanent disabilities. Currently over 315,000 people in Canada live with disabilities from a stroke. Similar to rapid identification and treatment of acute myocardial infarctions, time is of the essence when treating an acute ischemic stroke (AIS).Each minute a patient will lose millions of brain cells, billions of synapses … Read More

Anthony DiMonte Terrorism has unfortunately become a reality that we now must be able to face on our soil.We have been fortunate that many terrorist plots in Canada have been disrupted by our security and police agencies before the perpetrators were able to put their plans into action.The “Toronto 18”, “Via Rail plot” and several others are examples that have been publicly reported.However, as is often said by security experts, they have to get it right 100% of the time, … Read More

The evolution of paramedicine and how we manage patient care is ever evolving and changing with evidence of new research or the invention of new technology.The act of immobilizing a trauma patient to a long rigid board, known as a spine board recently has come into question and is a controversial topic.As practitioners we have an ethical responsibility to ensure we are employing current and best practices.Navigating the conversation about spinal immobilization while keeping to the standards set by regulation … Read More

By Lyle Brewster, Amanda Hlushak and Martin Nichols Abstract Introduction This literature review wasconducted to critically compare community paramedic programs used worldwide in order to propose a credible model appropriate for Australia.A comparison is presented on the role of a contemporary paramedic in Australia to a newer role for paramedics, with a direct focus on community paramedicine.This role diversification is in direct correlation to an aging population in most first world countries and their effects, which are called the Grey … Read More

By Liberty Fallon “It is a good thing you came in to see me today, Mr. Jones, you have some fluid beginning to build up in your lungs. If you had waited a couple more days, I believe you would have ended up admitted to the hospital with acute congestive heart failure (CHF) exacerbation.” There have been a number of similar comments made by physicians who have patients being monitored remotely. In this case, the patient had become increasingly short … Read More

By Natalie Harris It’s 0600 and the tones go off an hour from the end of your night shift. The noise makes your heart jump out of your chest like every other time; being woken up in this way is something no one ever gets used to. While you try to catch your breath, and convince your body that it doesn’t need to use the washroom, you make your way to the ambulance and prepare for…anything. While you pray that … Read More

Grainne Kent RD BSc(Hons.) PGDip(Dietetics)1,Paige Mason BA(Kinesiology)(Hons.)2, Alan Batt DipEMT GradCertICP MSc(c) CCP2,3 1. National Health Service, United Kingdom. 2. Fanshawe College, London, Ontario, Canada. 3. Centre for Prehospital Research, University of Limerick, Ireland. Introduction We live in a world that doesn’t sleep. Around the clock, there is a need for work to be done, from overnight services in hotels and restaurants, maintaining long-term industrial processes to continuous patient care in hospitals, and delivery of care in the prehospital setting.Shift … Read More